The Litchfield Jail is one of the oldest building in Litchfield's historic center, having originally been built in 1812. (Ryan Flynn-Register Citizen)

The Litchfield Jail is one of the oldest building in Litchfield's historic center, having originally been built in 1812. (Ryan Flynn-Register Citizen)

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The large, unoccupied jail is on the corner of North Street and West Street, just across from Litchfield's green and town center. (Ryan Flynn-Register Citizen)

The large, unoccupied jail is on the corner of North Street and West Street, just across from Litchfield's green and town center. (Ryan Flynn-Register Citizen)

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Connecticut looking to sell historic Litchfield jail built in 1812

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LITCHFIELD >> The old Litchfield jail is again on the market. The state Department of Administrative Services will attempt to sell the vacant building located 7 North St. and has offered two public tours for residents to inspect the innards of the historic building.

A public tour was offered from noon to 3 p.m. on Friday and another will be held on Aug. 1 from 8 a.m. to noon. Proposals to purchase the building are due by August 14.

The state has been looking for a buyer since 2010, when the former jail was last used as a rehabilitation center for women.

The jail, which was built in 1812, has been turned down several times by the town, most recently in June of 2012 when it was offered to Litchfield at no cost. The board of selectmen voted unanimously against accepting the property then, calling it too risky and expensive.

"We'd be in the flipping business," First Selectman Leo Paul told the Register Citizen in 2012.

The 201-year-old former jail is one of the "oldest penal facilities in the state," according to historicbuildingsct.com. Oddly enough, the jail has shared a common wall with a bank for most of its existence. The First National Bank of Litchfield was built beside it in 1816, in the location now operated by Union Savings Bank.

The building ceased to operate as a prison in 1992, after "a jail break in which a guard was stabbed and a New York man taken hostage," according to a 1994 New York Times article.

"Traditionally, the county jail had only housed inmates convicted of minor crimes. But over the past several years, as a state institution, the old building had been opened up to criminals with violent records and loaded to its 120-prisoner capacity," the article states.

Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., Connecticut governor at the time, ordered the building shut down in 1993 "as a cost-saving measure." It would re-open a year later as a rehabilitation center for women serving out the last part of their prison sentences, according to the New York Times. The center had a capacity of 30 clients.

It was renamed McAuliffe Manor, and operated until 2010, when the rehabilitation center closed. Since then, the state has been looking for a suitor to put the now-vacant building to use.

In June of 2011, the Greater Litchfield Preservation Trust co-funded a study with the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation that suggested the building could best be used as a municipal building, a theatre, a small hotel, apartments or a museum. The Litchfield Preservation trust lobbied the town to buy the building, at the time for an asking price of $120,000, which the Board of Selectmen declined.

"We don't think there's any more significant piece of property than the jail," Perley Grimes, president of the trust, said in 2011. "What happens to that corner is important."

Those looking for more information can contact Thomas Jerram, a property agent with the Department of Administrative Services, at 860-713-5605.